It dances
The male raises his coloured flap and a pair of legs, then shuffles from side to side, waving.
Tropical north · Spiders and scorpions
Peacock spider
Maratus volans
A tiny jumping spider. The male has a brilliantly coloured flap on his back that he lifts like a peacock's tail.
- Size
- About 5mm long
- Look for it
- August to December
- Where
- Leaf litter and low shrubs, mostly in the east and south of Australia
Scurries after you, then stops to dance. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Peacock spider
Good to know
Six things about the peacock spider
Dancing for his life
If the female is not impressed, she may eat him.
A grain of rice
It is about five millimetres long. The dance was hardly known until people filmed it close up.
Superb eyesight
Like all jumping spiders it has two huge front eyes that see colour and fine detail.
A long jump
It can leap many times its own length, paying out a safety line of silk as it goes.
Still being discovered
More than a hundred kinds are now known, and most were named after 2011.
The real thing
Photos of the peacock spider
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Get down on hands and knees among dry leaf litter on a sunny spring morning, and watch for a speck that moves in little hops.
How to help
Peacock spiders are harmless to people. They live in leaf litter and low scrub, which is easily cleared without anyone noticing what was there.
Keep going
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